THE former owner of a company which allowed polluting oils to seep into the water system in Birmingham has been fined £2,500.

Arshad Mehmood, who owned Biodiesel Oils, had previously admitted disposing of waste oils in a manner likely to cause pollution to the environment and was also ordered to pay £5,000 costs.

Judge Peter Carr said he had reduced the fine after taking into account the financial position of the defendant, who is now working as a taxi operator. Nicholas Cole, prosecuting at Birmingham Crown Court, said Biodiesel Oils had been set up to help the environment by producing an alternative fuel source, turning waste oil into a biodiesel product. However, in March 2007, it was discovered that an oily white substance was being discharged into Washwood Heath brook, an inner-city watercourse.

The discharge was traced back to the defendant’s biodiesel plant in Cherrywood Road, Bordesley Green.

It was discovered there was an open drain at the plant and that there were inadequate safeguards to prevent any spillage going down the drain and polluting watercourses.

Timothy Pole, defending, said Mehmood, aged 43, of Hazelmere Road, Hall Green, had not made any profit out of his business, which he had sold on, and that the offence was committed out of ignorance.